This picture is a barret (ditch) dug from the corner of our house to our tool shed.
It is an alarm wire, so that I can turn off alarms, and arm alarms remotely late at night without walking out to the shed. It is necessary because in our 6 years here, we've had our tools stolen 3 times from break ins. Our previous house tool shed was alarmed after the break ins.
This wire is a specialized external twisted pair. It's meant to withstand the decay of water and time.
4 years ago I ran similar wire at our other property, only I buried it 2 feet deeper and inside of conduit. At the time the wire was not as expensive as it is now, but if you're paying $1 per meter, it adds up the longer the distance.
Stay with me, you'll understand how I'm seeing God's hand in this.
I decided a few days ago to run this wire. I had tried an X10 wireless alarm, and even came up with a fun Jury Rig that I blogged on how to make it louder. Once it went louder I realized it was false alarming several times a day. So, time to move to a wired alarm system. WHICH, I have.
But the dollar has lost power, and we're in need of financial help right now, so I could not afford to BUY this wire.
I had an idea.... I would pull the wire out of the ground (AFTER SURGERY) from my old house. After all it was in conduit right?
Not happening. I was unable to pull the 2 lengths of cable out. I had wired the tool shed with smoke detectors, network, alarm, motion, door, etc. And could NOT reclaim the wiring.
But in the process, I got under the house and saw about 100 yards of coiled up extra cable.
Here's the punchline.
4 years ago, I had miscalculated the amount of cable I need and bought too much. And rather than cut it, I left it coiled and zip tied under the house.
4 years ago the Dollar was stronger than it is now and we were not in tough times financially.
4 years ago, God knew we were going to move in 4 years, and that we were going to need cable and not have money to pay for it.
The mantra we have been saying to ourselves is that THIS IS NOT A SURPRISE TO GOD.
We love our new place, but the move has set us back financially when we were not expecting it.
So we kept telling ourselves 'we will pray for God to move in the hearts of people and churches to give us what we need.'
As I looked at the need for security, and the price tag of nearly $300 to make it happen, I decided to forego the need and hope our tools and such weren't taken.
And then I came across this surplus of cable from 4 years ago....
but that's not the interesting part yet.
I couldn't sleep well last night wondering if the cable would be long enough. I told the person we hired to dig the ditch (because I can't yet)... to make it VERY STRAIGHT... because that would be the least amount of cable needed.
But the ditch has many twists and turns in it (not all pictured in this photo). I began to worry if I had enough extra cable.
Today at lunch the ditch was done and I hurriedly ran the cable.
Guess what...
it is EXACTLY the right length. I mean... I'm not going to cut a single inch off this thing. There is enough slack to go around ALL the curves, and to go through the wall, and up to the alarm system, and enough inches to cut and splice and even make a few errors if I have to.
It is EXACTLY the right length.
I don't believe in Luck, I don't believe in coincidence.
I believe that God, 4 years ago, knew I'd be waking up this morning saying 'God I need some encouragement, I'm trying to do the right thing here, but I can't spend the money, I have faith you know what you're doing and none of this is surprising you.'
And when I ran that cable it was like He was replying "See, I had you over calculate 4 years ago so you'd have free cable today, and I ordered it, exactly the right size, knowing even that your ditch would be crooked."
You may think 'well if it was too short you could have spliced it'. Not with underground cable you can't. The connection will die quickly if you do.
You may think 'luck, coincidence, who cares.' I care. Big time. We consider every major expense, are we being good stewards of what is given to us? Is this a wise decision?
And further, I went over my notes back when we purchased the cable and told my wife, "I just can't see how I over ordered this cable! I ran the numbers three times.. I walked the distance repeatedly... how on earth did I over order?"
Now I know. And I'm SUPER thankful for it and very encouraged by it.
